Homeless advocates stunned, angered by latest state budget cuts

Friday

Oct 30, 2009 at 12:01 AMOct 30, 2009 at 10:54 AM

Executives at Father Bill’s Place and the Massachusetts Housing and Shelter Alliance say Gov. Deval Patrick’s $2.7 million cut for aid to homeless individuals amounts to punishment for being successful at moving clients off the street and into stable housing.

Lane Lambert

Some social-service programs may be relieved that their share of Thursday’s round of state budget cuts is less than feared, but not advocates for the homeless.

A 7 percent statewide cut for funding for homeless individuals – almost $3 million – left state and local advocates angered and dismayed.

“This is our reward for being successful,” said Joe Finn, the executive director of the Massachusetts Housing and Shelter Alliance.

At the Father Bill’s Place & Mainspring shelters in Quincy and Brockton, president and chief executive John Yazwinski said his agency’s share of the cut will badly strain an already overcrowded facility – and possibly put homeless men and women at risk this winter.

“This is going to be a matter of life or death for some people,” Yazwinski said.

He said Father Bill’s could lose as much as $200,000 from the latest cuts, at a time when the shelter is 60 percent over its state-funded capacity.

Father Bill’s & Mainspring have a combined annual budget of about $12.5 million. The state pays for 75 beds per night at Father Bill’s.

That’s 60 percent of the shelter’s cost, but 126 stayed there Wednesday night. When the economy was good, Yazwinski said Father Bill’s didn’t see numbers like that until midwinter.

Half of this week’s nightly totals have been over 60 years old. The numbers of women, teenagers and veterans are also rising.

Finn and Yazwinski said the latest cut actually amounts to a 15 percent cut, since it will be taken in the last half of the state’s 2009-2010 fiscal year.

Finn – who’s a Quincy councilor – said the $2.7 million cut might not look like much, but he said it’s disproportionately heavier than some other human services cuts – and more than administrative cuts in the Department of Housing and Community Development.

The cuts also follow almost a decade of unchanged annual funding for homeless aid, Finn said.

While the new cuts appear to have largely spared funding for homeless families, Yazwinski said the cut could also jeopardize Quincy’s successful effort to reduce its population of homeless adults.

A combined campaign by Father Bill’s and the city has cut the number by 50 percent in the past few years.